Public Fables

Anyone know if The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is still copyrighted or is it free to the public just like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz?

Maybe a list of Fairy Tales that are free for public consumption would be cool. Beauty and the Beast perhaps? Pinnochio?

First published in 1820, so I expect you'll be okay with it.

Places like Project Gutenberg are good places to find public domain literature : http://www.gutenberg.org

:o)

nah make a video game based on the complete works of shakespear ;)

Biggest catch: make sure that you base your game on the original version, not on a later adaptation. If you borrow too many aspects of a recent movie version instead of the original you can still be on the hook for breach of copyright. Especially important with the Disneyfied versions of many of the classic fairy tales, which often deviate significantly from the original stories.

(IIRC the Wonderful Wizard of Oz game didn't use the red shoes since those were a more recent Disney addition to the story)

xlsior has it right, right down to the red shoes. Turns out we ran out of time to put ANY shoes in our game but they were going to be silver.

Right, I knew the original shoes were silver. But actually I don't think Disney had anything to do with the film version of the movie from the 30s. I believe it was MGM. And I think Disney bought MGM later. Not sure just assuming. If anyone knows for sure fire away.

Probably you are correct. I meant xlsior was right about the "make sure you base your game on the original version" and the fact that movies sometimes alter the details.